Paper
Abstracts
Learning Communities Symposium
A learning community two years on: Reflecting on successes and framing futures
Catherine Arden, Trevor Cooper, Kathryn McLachlan & Sheila Stebbings
University of Southern Queensland; Stanthorpe Shire Council; Community Development Services Inc; Stanthorpe Shire Library
The learning communities movement emerged during the 1970s in response to a perceived need for rural and regional communities across the western world to adapt to significant changes in the structure of their economies as a result of globalisation, the impact of technological innovations, and changing demographics (Longworth, 2006). Learning communities, cities, towns and regions “explicitly use learning as a way of promoting social cohesion, regeneration and economic development which involves all parts of the community ” (Yarnit, 2000, p. 11, as cited in Kilpatrick, Barrett and Jones, 2003, p. 2). The so-called ‘wider benefits’ of this increased participation in learning are often defined and described in terms of enhanced human, social and economic capital as well as improved health and wellbeing. Stanthorpe Shire, located on the Granite Belt of South East Queensland, was officially declared a learning community by the then Mayor during the Adult Learners’ Week celebrations in September, 2005. Ongoing learning community initiatives are being led by the Granite Belt Learners, a group comprised of local community members who are passionate about the value of lifelong learning for the continued well-being and prosperity of their community. This paper reports the results of the group’s engagement in a participatory action research (PAR) evaluation process two years on from Stanthorpe’s official declaration as a ‘learning community’. Through this reflexive engagement, the group revisited the original ‘learning community’ vision with a view to evaluating progress and framing possible lifelong learning futures. As well as highlighting identified benefits and opportunities for individuals, groups and the broader community, the report gives consideration to risks and challenges inherent in both the implementation and evaluation of their ‘learning community’ initiative, and presents an action research and evaluation framework that can be used to guide the community on the next stage of its journey.
References
Longworth, N. (2006). Learning cities, learning regions, learning communities: Lifelong learning and local government. London: Routledge
Kilpatrick, S., Barrett, M., & Jones, T. (2003). Defining learning communities CRLRA Discussion Paper Series Discussion Paper D1/2003. Launceston: University of Tasmania
Look what the tide brought in: the tensions and opportunities within seachange learning communities.
Geoff Danaher
Central Queensland University
The seachange movement has had significant demographic, economic and cultural implications for coastal communities in Australia and overseas. While the movement of urban residents to such communities can bring considerable economic benefits and also generate cultural assets, the clash of the quite different life experiences and value systems of older and newer residents can lead to certain challenges. Such seachange sites can be understood as learning communities in the way they engage with and respond to different technological, cultural, economic and environmental forces. The extent to which such communities learn to constructively and creatively respond to these forces shapes the degree to which they can frame productive and transformative lifelong learning futures. Thus the concept of learning community can be useful in making sense of the influences that facilitate and inhibit change in such places. This paper focuses on Yeppoon and the Capricorn Coast as a seachange location and explores the way it operates as a learning community. It identifies both tensions and opportunities for successful interactions within the community that shape its lifelong learning futures.
Online learning communities: Adopting a learner centred perspective to frame lifelong learning futures
Dolene Rossi
Central Queensland University, University of Southern Queensland
Online learning environments offer an educational domain unique in its potential for interaction, participation and collaboration. Although there is a lack of definitional consensus central themes suggest that a learning community may be described as a group of individuals who share a common purpose or goal, collaborate to address learning needs and draw from individual and shared experiences in order to construct knowledge and enhance the individual and collective potential of community members. Thus an online course constitutes a “virtual” learning community. Within this paper Vygotsky’s theory of development is used as a conceptual lens to view learning within online learning communities. From a social constructivist perspective learning is a social and situated process. The paradigm is based on the principle that individuals and communities construct knowledge based on their experience and are constantly refining knowledge of the world by interacting, in social and cultural contexts, with their environment. Participants actively construct meaning through language; thus learners learn by engaging in dialogue and the thinking of individuals is influenced by the group they are working in. Vygotsky’s theory is appropriate as it is based on three interrelated precepts; that human activities take place in cultural contexts, are mediated by language and other symbol systems and can be best understood when investigated in their historical development. Within this paper discussion of the pressures and possibilities of online learning communities and potential sustainable outcomes related to lifelong learning are explored from the learner’s perspective. Responses, embedded within the dialogue of individuals participating in an online communications course, reveal pressures exerted by faculty, self and peers associated with the challenge of collaborating within a text based environment. Learners acknowledge advantages of exposure to multiple perspectives, the diverse experience of others and increased opportunities for reflection and interaction with others in online groups.
I’m not alone: first year course leaders helped through communities of practice.
Michael Sankey & Jill Lawrence
University of Southern Queensland
This paper will report on a two year pilot project aimed at facilitating the professional development of teachers of first year courses in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). The project comprised a community of practice, which was initiated to improve the quality of first year teaching in the Faculty and, consequently, students’ learning outcomes. Topics covered by the community included course design, embedding academic values, graduate attributes, and student retention strategies. The pilot study found that the community has significantly contributed to the professional development of participating staff, fostering a transformative learning approach for these teachers. By participating in the community members have been able to reflect on their existing practices and co-construct initiatives to enhance the learning experiences of their students. It also assists staff to address and develop strategies to meet the individual, institutional and societal demands currently impacting on their teaching. Using an action research approach, the project evaluated the impact of this form of professional development as well as coordinating a range of innovative curriculum strategies resulting in the development of a first year teachers’ resource kit ‘Effective Practice for First Year Educators’. The dynamic nature of this project conforms to the university’s charter to establish innovative ways of supporting the learning and teaching program. By researching this transformative process this project has demonstrated new ways of understanding the complex issues faced by teachers. This understanding will, potentially, have a significant impact on the ways the University supports both its staff and students in the future. The outcomes of this project will therefore be used to form the basis of future communities of practice to promote teaching and learning and to support high quality research into pedagogy, practice and learning across the university.
Living and learning: communities of practice re-engaging young mothers through vocational education.
Hilary Timma
Charles Sturt University
Young, single mothers may lack basic parenting skills and may also become disengaged from mainstream education. Their immediate concerns, which centre on the welfare of the baby, can be exacerbated with feelings of isolation from their peers and that they are being ‘left behind’. In the long-term, this could lead to poor employment prospects, with few options available. In 2007, a small research project was conducted through a regional New South Wales community college, where a parenting programme for young mothers ran for two days per week over a six month period. Participants formally studied units from the Certificate III in Children’s Services and also engaged in personal development and relaxation activities including meditation, journal writing and creative art. The parenting programme (based on a successful regional model) was delivered in a childcare facility and the researcher focussed on the sociality of vocational learning within this local community of practice. Of particular interest were the ways participants viewed the acquisition of parenting skills, leading to an accredited statement of attainment and what they planned to do vocationally when the course ceased. Informal discussions, observations, and semi-formal interviews with participants were the main forms of data collection and the researcher also sought verbal and written feedback from the programme coordinator. Documentary evidence, including units from the Children’s Services Training Package, was also accessed. This paper employs a case study methodology to examine factors that have contributed to providing positive learning experiences for one participant and how her self-perception and expectations have altered during the length of the programme. Findings from this project could contribute to enhancing understanding about the ways in which young, single mothers ‘live and learn’ and can be supported to cultivate socially- and vocationally-located learning opportunities, to meet immediate aspirations and future prospects.
Framing futures through notions of a particular community of practice: what TAFE teachers said.
Mark Tyler
University of Southern Queensland
This paper was initialised by a request from a group of TAFE teachers for support in the development of what they called “a community of practice”. In an effort to explore this localised encounter with the concept of learning as a social phenomenon, this paper explores the question, “If a group of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) teachers described a community of practice, how might it look?” Some would suggest that learning is less about the individual and more about the social relationships and conversations in which individuals are immersed. It is from this notion of learning as being a social process in everyday experience that the constructs of learning and community coalesce to produce such enactments as learning communities and communities of practice, as well as ideas around situated learning, social capital and distributed cognition. How this group of TAFE teachers construct their version of a shared space where learning can occur through partnership and collaboration is of keen interest and offers a counter to managerial notions of ‘how’ TAFE teachers should ‘do’. This paper reports the particular teacher voice that emerged from a group of TAFE teachers as they reflected on and grappled with their concept of “a community of practice”. These voices have important implications for how this group of teachers choose to frame their futures through a synergistic association that might contribute to the enhancement of their capabilities as TAFE teachers and lifelong learners, and the shared social rewards this could bring⎯ for example, staking a greater claim over their identities as curriculum innovators, and in offering alternative perceptions to those notions of teacher put forth by accreditation bodies. The teachers in this study are fulltime teachers at a regional Institute of TAFE in South Eastern Queensland; their voices were gathered and interpreted by an interpretative methodology framed by phenomenography.
Teleological pressures and ateleological possibilites on and for a fragile learning community: Implications for framing lifelong learning futures for Australian university academics
Dr Patrick Danaher
University of Southern Queensland
The teleological–ateleological distinction constitutes a useful conceptual lens for analysing and evaluating potential learning communities within large organisations. While it is important to eschew an institutional–individual binary in favour of more fluid and situated understandings of whether and how small groups engage in lifelong learning in such organisations, there is nevertheless value in analysing the juxtaposition of system-wide imperatives and personal aspirations in relation to workplace learning.
This paper applies the teleological–ateleological lens to the activities of a group of postgraduate and early career researchers at an Australian university. For the past two years, members of the group have sought to enhance one another’s and their own skills and outcomes in academic research and publishing. The organisational imperatives have included the Australian Government’s Research Quality Framework and consequent university and faculty research management plans and workload allocation models, while the group’s initiatives have included fortnightly meetings, annual research symposia, edited publications and beginning strategic alliances with other groups within and outside the organisation.
The paper identifies some areas of possible convergence between the organisational imperatives and the individual aspirations that might usefully be pursued more systematically. At the same time, there are significant dissonances between these imperatives and aspirations that are inefficient and unproductive at best and debilitating and self-defeating at worst. This analysis suggests shared and specific responsibilities for all stakeholders in the academics’ lifelong and workplace learning if the potential of that learning is to be harnessed and maximised.
More broadly, the author concludes that there are mixed signals in relation to whether the postgraduate and early career researchers can be accurately and appropriately considered a learning community. On the one hand, the ateleological half of the lens highlights encouraging possibilities in the group’s energy, resilience and ongoing commitment to lifelong learning. On the other hand, the teleological half of the lens emphasises some countervailing pressures that might weaken these possibilities. These teleological pressures and ateleological possibilities suggest in turn significant implications for understanding and hopefully nurturing fragile learning communities, thereby framing their lifelong learning futures.
